Cop in charge at Uvalde quits after CNN reveals he knew 8 or 9 kids needed saving, and after re-election to county post

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The acting police chief during the elementary-school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, "will no longer serve on the force, following release of a phone call showing he knew that 'eight to nine' victims were still alive inside two interconnected classrooms" at Robb Elementary School, Publisher Craig Garnett reports for the Uvalde Leader-News. Mayor Don McLaughlin told Garnett that Lt. Mariano Pargas "will be gone by this week, whether he chooses to retire or he's fired."

“If we’d had those videos that he (CNN reporter Shimon Prokupecz) showed on Pargas, then we would have done something two months ago,” McLaughin told Garnett. The Associated Press reports that Pargas left the agency "voluntarily but it was not immediately clear whether he retired or resigned, according to city spokeswoman Gina Eisenberg."

Pargas is a member of the Uvalde County Commissioner's Court but was absent Wednesday when "six community members called for Pargas to resign the post he was re-elected to on Nov. 8," Julye Keeble reports for the Leader-News. Two people who lost relatives in the May 24 shootings "expressed disappointment that Pargas did not attend the meeting and called on him to resign," Keeble reports. "Diana Olvedo-Karau, one of three write-in candidates against Pargas in the general election, which he won with slightly over 45 percent of the fewer than 1,300 votes cast, said she does not dispute the election results but she is disappointed in the low voter turnout."

"Olvedo-Karau implored commissioners to remove Pargas from office," Keeble reports. "They do not have the authority to remove a sitting commissioner. . . . She said she is convinced of his failure to act at Robb Elementary School on May 24, where 19 students and two teachers died after law enforcement waited 77 minutes to breach the adjoining classrooms where survivors waited."

AP reports, "In the months after the shooting, state officials have focused blame on the school district police chief, Pete Arredondo, saying he made “terrible decisions” as the on-scene commander not to confront the gunman sooner. Arredondo was fired in August but has said he didn’t consider himself the person in charge and assumed someone else had taken control of the police response that eventually swelled to nearly 400 officers." The Leader-News' main headline Wednesday was "Pargas knew children needed saving."